Mornings
by Pariaritzia
Summary: In which Anna realises, to her horror, that being married means that Kristoff will see her...when she wakes up.


**Because I look like a dead person in the morning, and I think everyone else in the world does, too, no matter how perfect ladies in mattress commercials look when they wake up. Here's to real people!**

**Bonne lecture.**

For Anna, one aspect of marriage was positively terrifying.

Not the sharing of living space, or the pointless quarrels, or the—ahem—new night-time activity. No, Anna could handle all of that.

It was the morning that bothered her. Waking up in the morning, to be precise. Waking up in the morning and having Kristoff _see_ her, to be perfectly specific.

She was not the most graceful person even after she had re-braided her hair, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and made an attempt to find a dress in a colour that made her look halfway pretty. In the morning, when she had not done any of those things, when she was just an awkward girl in a too-big nightgown, with frizzy hair, bleary eyes, drool tracks on her cheeks, and less-than-perfumed breath, well—it wasn't pretty. Not at all.

To say she panicked the morning after the wedding would be an understatement. Upon waking at eight o'clock and realising that her ice harvester had a habit of waking up at the ungodly hour of _six in the morning_ (and this was after an absurdly grand wedding, and Elsa freezing the hair on the back of his neck for kissing Anna too much during the ceremony, and the two of them staying up half the night for—ahem—other occupations), Anna had made a sound between a gasp and a squeak and immediately pulled the blankets up over her head.

Kristoff, who had long ago given up on waiting for her to wake up and had been midway through dressing, stopped and gave her a look.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes!" she shouted, too quickly. "Yes, I'm fine! I'm just—um—there's too much sun!"

"Oh." He went to the window and drew the curtain. "There you go."

"Thank you," she said, without moving.

He waited another minute, then shrugged and finished buttoning his shirt. "I think Elsa said there'd be breakfast until nine."

"Okay."

"It's already a quarter past eight."

"Yes, thank you for telling me. I'll be out in a moment."

She felt the bed creak as Kristoff sat upon it. His hand found her arm through the blanket and he rubbed it. "Are you okay? You're not hurt or something after…"

"No!" she interrupted, blushing furiously beneath the covers. "No, you didn't hurt me. I'm just not really a morning person."

"Oh. Okay. Well…should I just go on ahead, then?"

"Yes! Yes, that would be good. I'll come to breakfast in a bit."

"Okay," he said again, squeezing her arm. "See you downstairs, feistypants."

The moment Anna heard the door shut she jumped out of the bed and ran to the bathroom, hands covering her face in case Kristoff came back for some reason. Twenty minutes later she emerged, fully dressed, and went to breakfast.

.^.

The next morning she did the same. And the morning after that, and after that, and after that. Kristoff, assuming this was another 'Anna thing,' never bothered trying to coax her out of bed any sooner than she did.

The practice went on for nearly a month, and would likely have continued for much longer had Anna not, for once in her life, woken up before Kristoff.

He had been feeling poorly the day before and slept like a log (which meant he snored loud enough to drown out a chainsaw—not that Anna minded, as she was a light snorer herself and was glad that Kristoff would never know that, thanks to his own stertor). Anna woke her usual time, stretching lazily and turning to see…

Kristoff still there, fast asleep, his face smashed into the pillow.

Poor baby. She kissed his forehead, felt his temperature, and decided to let him sleep more. She went to the bathroom to wash and re-braid her hair, then returned to lie beside him, nestling against him for warmth.

A while later his eyes opened. He blinked blearily, wincing at the sunlight dappling the bed.

"Agh," he croaked, rolling onto his back and throwing an arm over his eyes. "No. No sun. No light. Make it go away."

"Good morning!"

"Bad. Bad morning."

"It's such a pretty day!" Anna said cheerfully. "Birds are singing, can't you hear them?"

He groaned. "I thought you weren't a morning person."

"It's nine o'clock, Kristoff."

"Is it? I feel dead." He sat up, knuckling his eyes like a little boy. "Am I dead?"

Anna just laughed. She opened her mouth to tell him that no, he was _not_ dead, and if he was then she wouldn't be here, because she wouldn't be dead, too—but then he yawned and rubbed the back of his neck, and she properly looked at him.

His hair was squashed flat on one side and stuck straight up on the other, there was a large red mark on his cheek where it had been pressed against a fold in the pillow, there were dark circles beneath his eyes, which were all squinty because of the brightly lit room, and there were bits of string from the worn collar of his nightshirt stuck to the little hairs shadowing his jaw.

And he looked _beautiful_.

Suddenly everything made sense. Kristoff could be covered in mud and sweat and she would still think he was handsome (though he might not smell so good). In the same way, Kristoff would still love her, no matter what she looked like. He didn't love her because she was pretty; she was pretty because he loved her.

Giddiness flooded her, and she flung her arms around him. "Oh, Kristoff, thank you!"

He blinked and looked down at her, bewildered. "Um—you're welcome. What am I being thanked for?"

"For making me pretty," she said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

"You're always pretty, feistypants," he said, yawning again and tugging gently at one of her braids.

She lifted her head, beaming, and leaned up to kiss him. He turned his head at the last second, laughing a little.

"Might not want to do that until I've been to the bathroom," he said, as she kissed his cheek instead.

"That's all right! I don't mind!"

"No, really, Anna, you might pass out," he said, sliding out of bed and tucking the blankets around her. "Let me go wash first, and then we'll kiss all you want, okay?"

"Okay," she said, watching him go with a silly smile.

.^.

The next morning, as per usual, she woke up after Kristoff.

This time she left the blanket where it was, tangled around her waist and exposing her face in all its frizzy-haired, drool-stained, bleary-eyed glory, and she felt like the prettiest girl in the castle.


End file.
